#aniseandspearmint

[thelordofgifs]

For the prompt thing, number 24 on the Silmarils list; choked with weeds and slime? IDK seems like a line you could do something interesting with.

Another one I’m answering a year late, but have some War of Wrath-era Elros and Elrond growing slowly apart! Thank you for the prompt 💕

“Just a little further,” Elrond says confidently, raising his torch. It does very little to illuminate the dank forest path ahead of them, but he does not seem deterred. “We’ll know it when we feel it.”

“Elrond,” Elros says quietly, trailing after him. He is not used to this position – not used to being the one to doubt. For so much of their lives it has been the other way around, has Elrond followed Elros charging head-first into wherever his will led them.

“You remember,” Elrond insists. “Naneth told us that the air inside Melian’s Girdle was cleaner and purer than any she had ever breathed since.”

Elros inhales, takes in the stench of rot and decay that clogs the forest, and thinks with longing of the clean salt air of the Sea. “The Girdle was fallen almost before Naneth was born,” he says. “It is not here, Elrond.”

“The forest will remember it, even so,” Elrond says. “Doriath was once the most blessed realm in Beleriand – and we its last heirs! It will remember us.”

Too often these days, in Elros’ view, does Elrond’s talk turn towards the power of memory. It makes him uneasy: he does not like to feel the edges of a rift between them, to understand so little the drift of his brother’s thought. Perhaps it is the knowledge of burned Sirion, and all that was lost with it, that haunts Elrond now – or perhaps the long shadow of Amon Ereb, that mausoleum in which they came of age, where the sons of Fëanor mourned the lost days of their glory, and Maglor’s every lullaby was half a dirge.

Beleriand was splendid once, it is true – but the land is breaking now, and the interminable war drawing into its final act, and Elros is more concerned with building something from the ashes than weeping for what was burned. But he does not know how to say this to Elrond, who is still leading him towards the forest’s heart, where Menegroth once flourished.

“Do you even know how to enter the city?” he asks instead. The path, choked with weeds and slime, clings unpleasantly to his feet and makes a squelching sound with every step. “The hidden entrance may now be lost.”

“Not lost,” Elrond murmurs, his voice losing a little of its bravado. “Perhaps it has forgotten itself – but we can call it back.”

“And how long will that take?” Elros argues. “Elrond, my men are waiting for me. I have not the time for a fool’s errand.”

Elrond turns back to look at him for the first time. For a moment Elros is oddly glad of that, that he might still capture his brother’s attention with a sharp word: but the thought is almost immediately followed by a hot flash of shame, for hurt flickers briefly in Elrond’s eyes. It is the sort of thing Maedhros used to do, in his worst moods – goad and goad until at last Maglor gave him some reaction, often too imperceptible for the twins to see. Elros does not want to be like Maedhros. Does not want to think of Maedhros, wants to shake off all the clinging ghosts of his childhood and look now to the world ahead.

But: “It ought not take long,” is all Elrond says, mildly.

They walk in silence, Elros breathing through his nose. He thinks again of the Edain under his command, whom he left waiting at their new outpost a little south of the forest. It has been long enough since he and Elrond last went away on an adventure of their own, for Gil-galad cannot often spare his brother from his duties, and Elros too is a commander in his own right. Besides, he did not think his men would understand their object: most of them have grandparents too young to remember Doriath before its fall. Still he does not like to abandon them, does not want them to think him just another elvish princeling, a stranger to mortal troubles and mortal woes.

But nor could he have let Elrond set out on this quest alone.

In the silence Elrond begins to sing a canto of the Lay of Leithian, of Lúthien dancing in the forest glades to Daeron’s music. Elros joins him, for their voices yet ring stronger together than apart – but he can put little conviction behind the song. The forest that his foremother loved is dead now, and so is she – they cannot resurrect her with their poems and their songs, necromancy dressed up as memorials, she is fled where they cannot reach her. Elros wonders if she was glad to do it.

Elrond’s eyes keep flitting between the dark, foreboding tree-trunks, as though he cannot quite understand why they do not become green and fair again under the influence of his song. At last he stops singing, a little frustrated now. “I cannot find a way,” he says, “it is all dark and rotten.”

“Well, there have been all manner of foul creatures crawling through these forests since Doriath fell,” Elros says sensibly. “I would be surprised were it not polluted.” 

“Why will it not cleanse itself?” Elrond says, his voice barely above a whisper. “Why will it not remember how it used to be?”

Every two years or so Elrond will come to Elros with a plan to reach out to Maglor and his brother, and bring them before Gil-galad to face justice and redemption. Each time Elros tries to make him understand how impossible the idea is – and it works, for a year or two. 

He is not accustomed to thinking of his brother as childish – not accustomed to feeling so very old as he does right now, seeing the stunned bewildered hurt on Elrond’s face.

“It is tired, Elrond,” he says. “Let it sleep.”

For a moment Elrond’s face crumples, and Elros thinks he must weep; then he says, quite calmly and cheerfully, “Well then, we had best be getting you back to your men,” and sets his course for the forest’s southern border.

The victory feels hollow, to Elros: but then, they all do. 

[shanastoryteller]

Happy birthday! More selkie wwx pretty please?

a continuation of 1 2

Wei Wuxian sleeps with his seal skin on top of him. He’s not sure if it settles him to have it close or if it’s just comforting because of how large and heavy it is, because of how it feels like it’s pushing him back into his body when his body feels like something different and wrong.

Maybe it is. Some of his kind never come onto land. Maybe that’s the life he was supposed to live and all of this has been a mistake.

Jiang Cheng is angry with him.

He wants to give Wei Wuxian’s golden core back, is furious that he tricked him in the first place, and won’t listen to a single word of his explanations.

“I’ve lived without my core and I’ve lived without you,” he says, “I know which one is worse. We’re going to fix this.”

He’s miserable because Jiang Cheng isn’t speaking to him and warmed because when he does it’s to say things like that. He doesn’t understand, though. If Jiang Cheng wants him around, then what’s the point of trying to give his core back? All that does is give him the ability to leave, to slip into the ocean and never return.

“A-Xian,” Shijie had sighed when he’d confided in her. “You won’t ever leave us for good. You’ve proven that. We just want you to be happy.”

None of this is turning out like he thought it would, but he stands by his choice. He hopes Jiang Cheng never succeeds in finding Wen Qing and having her reverse the core transfer.

[tanoraqui]

Trick or Treat! Something Silmarillion?

In the early Third Age when Turgon has returned to life and he and Elenwë and Finrod & Amarië are finally fulfilling their long-held plan of having children at the same time, that they might grow up close as siblings like Finrod and Turgon had, Idril and Tuor say, "Hey, we could also do that! We always meant to have more than one child, and there's nothing actually stopping us!"

So they do. Now, there actually is something stopping them a little - the bearing of Elvish or half-Elvish children is more...metaphysically participatory? than that of Men (or Dwarves, etc). For both parents. Tuor had done it once and been fine, but that was in his native land, and even with Ulmo's guardianship and life on Tol Eressëa, which was fairly mild in terms of blessing-intensity, at roughly 3,500 years of age, his fëa is now worn a little thin.

But their daughter is born hearty and whole, and if Tuor is abed for a few weeks with weariness, well, he's back on his feet soon, and Idril is more than strong enough to bear a single mother's spiritual burden now that the babe is born. Indeed, she insists. Unequivocally.

Moriwen ("dark-crowned maiden") is named for her grandmother Rian and the dark brown hair she inherited from her (to no small amusement to many, given that her parents were both very blond). Her hair never quite achieves the natural luster of Elvish locks - instead, it easily gets tangled, bedraggled, and encrusted with sea-salt like her father's.

She grows up on Tol Eressëa at a nearly Elvish pace, because that feels most natural to her, and chooses to live and die (or not) as an Elf. All her friends and family are Elves (or as close as one semi-retired prophet of the sea can be) so why should she wish to be otherwise?

(The Choice is natural to all first-generation half-bloods, though after that, majority-genetics determines it unequivocally, and mortality wins in a coincidentally 50/50 balance...unless complicated by Maiaran blood, see: the heirs of Lúthien. That extends the Choice for a couple more generations, though mortality is still a heavy draw. Usually. Several Valar very quietly wish those guys would stop reproducing because tbh it's freaking them out.)

But the Mannish half of her heritage did enrapture her as well, and even more eagerly than Tuor, she sought tales of mortal Arda from every newcomer to the immortal shores. What were her distant cousins up to now? How was their mastery of metallurgy going? Were Elrond's youngest (her great-niece!) walking yet? Was that cathedral in Osgiliath still under construction?

She started recording accounts, new and old, and copying any books people brought with them when they Sailed. She blinked and she'd founded a library, soon the greatest in Aman for records of mortal lands. She was called Moriwen Peradan ("half-Man"), and for at least half of the Third Age had a thriving covert correspondence with Elrond via specially bred seabirds. (If you combine the migratory endurance of the arctic tern with the seagull's ability to get everywhere, and you're very patient, long-lived, determined, and by a precise intersection of Ainu blood and favor have a particular knack with seabirds, you can create an all-new species that can travel back and forth along the Straight Road, and discreetly share them with family!)

Moriwen ends up marrying Maeglin about a century after his re-embodiment, after he awkwardly shyly sidles into the Great Library of Tol Eressëa to find out (without, god forbid, talking to anyone involved) what happened to Idril's descendants after they survived, y'know, Stuff; and some rom-com mistaken identity shenanigans ensue.

[magic-owl]

This is reepicheep

He's TECHNICALLY a chivalrous, swashbuckling mouse in a jaunty hat, but they VASTLY oversized him in the movie, so he looked more like a large rat.

OOOOH! *claps hands excitedly* I don’t recognize him but this is ABSOLUTELY the kind of guy I’d need to help me make decisions in Home Depot and help keep us on budget. Would probably also have a good eye for detail and aesthetic.

Also the fact that he’s a mouse helps cuz i just realized that out of Team 6, at least four of us are either very (or extremely) short or don’t have that much in the way of upper body strength (me, Bilbo, Reepicheep, and while i think she could outlift me at even age 11 I’m gonna have to put Lucy in there too)

Which is to say that the last two are gonna be the ones doing the majority of the heavy lifting, which i think will be REALLY helpful in regards to Feener.

Like yeah he’s a neurotic opinionated temperamental control freak, but he’s a neurotic opinionated temperamental control freak on a deadline he has apparently committed to, and we know what he’s like with things he commits to. That means he wants the job to get Done, and him having his hands full knocking out walls and carrying in the heavy stone countertops and most of the furniture will hopefully at least slow him down from trying to railroad the rest of us out of other aspects of the project—especially if we prove ourselves competent in his eyes, which the strong personalities of everyone else can definitely do

Anyway I’m glad to have Reepicheep here, I’m sure beyond the Home Depot skills he’d be fantastic help in fighting off local officials trying to get us for not having the proper building permits

[imjustusingthistolikeartists]

@aniseandspearmint mentioned you on a post “Congratulations you've got Magic! Pick a familiar!...”:

@imjustusingthistolikeartists YEP :D. There's some overlap, but every so often it's gonna bring it's person something and they're gonna have to figure out WHY they need a lock pick and three sticks of a gun flavor they hate!

​Or it might give you a stress ball and a book on how to relax instead

[tanoraqui]

Okayyy let's try this again! Tumblr has crashed twice on me as I've tried to leave this. Might be a sign from the universe, lol. Too bad tho, the universe needs to be clearer, I'm bad with hints.

Anyway, I saw your thing about wanting questions? And this is probably late to the party and might not be what you're asking for BUT-

One of my favorite things in a crossover is when the two (or more but it's harder to find done well) fandoms collide like two trains and they both just completely derail each other into a new genre or sub genre (often a flavor of fix it).

So, a question for you. What other fandom would you completely and fully derail the Silmarillion with? What event would you choose to have it happen at?

I can see this question in my activity feed but not my inbox, weird. That’s fine; the printer is DONE FOR NOW, though I’ll be back to it tomorrow.

Unfortunately, the universe was warning you rightly: direct crossovers like that are my LEAST favorite kind of crossover. I don’t want to disrupt the stories I like, I want to nudge them together until the parallels and perpendiculars become clear in a way that makes both original works richer! I’m a fan of “how would the characters from X, retaining some amount of their innate backstories and plots, fit into the world of Y, which retains its innate backstory slots and overall plot?”

Which brings me to cursed information that haunts me: when viewed as a single cohesive story, The Silmarillion + The Hobbit + Lord of the Rings…has the rarely achieved wide variety of not just characters but entirely distinct character groups across culture, geography and time, with unrelated but intersecting plotlines and wildly dissonant tones but overall coherent themes across all areas and eras of the world…to be that rare work of fiction that you could use to make a genuinely analogously comprehensive homestuck au.

The role Dad would have to be played by Bilbo. He would have a sidequest adventure with carapacians analogous to the events of The Hobbit. I will take no further questions at this time.

[magic-owl]

Mustelid! The family that contains stoats, weasels, and ferrets! And raccoons, skunks, otters, polecats, etc. There are a lot of them! (sharing bc it annoys me to no end when i just can't find the right word and my brain is resolutely offering up the wrong one over and over like, 'will this one do?' and i'm just sitting there with a developing eye twitch bc NO brain, that will NOT do and someone coming along and giving me the RIGHT word is something i appreciate a lot)

MUSTELID! THAT'S THE WORD!!! thank you for letting me know, because i knew that stoats are Not In Fact shellfish but i didn't know what they actually WERE classified as! my brain is satisfied now, thank you ^_^

[angels-and-wizards]

Re; your tags on the 14 and the companion support group post, yeah Yaz might be upset for a hot minute, but she's a smart woman.

I think she would very quickly realize that The Doctor and Donna have an ENTIRELY different kind of relationship than she wanted with HER Doctor?

And that this version of the Doctor needed a safe family environment, not a romance. Also, I don't see Yaz as being romantically or sexually attracted to male presenting Tennant 14 the way she was with Jodie's 13? It was never fully said I don't think, but I always thought Yaz was a lesbian, or at least a queer woman with very little natural attraction to men.

It might be a bit of a struggle, but once Yaz works through it she'll understand.

Oh for sure, Yaz is smart and I definitely don't see her being attracted to 14 for that exact reason!

Also yeah Donna and Tennant have the best friend platonic vibe which is why 10 and Donna were always my favourite modern pairing (not best tardis team though)

I think you're right and that eventually she may hang out with 14 as just her gay bff which would be cute! I can see them wingpersoning eachother a bit xD

But yeah Yaz's leftover feelings from 13 would probably hurt at first, especially because the main reason was "I can't settle down"

[froggeultra]

For the microwave thing. How many watts it is effects how long you have to put things in for.

Most microwave food directions are going off of how long it takes to heat at 1000 or 1500 watts.

But a lot of cheaper microwaves are 700 or 900 watts (mine is 700). So cooking or reheating in those takes a lot longer.

If you look online, there are lots of helpful conversion charts people have made.

the issue i have with my dorm microwave rn isn't a wattage thing, its that the college dining hall takeout containers are too big for it to spin them to cook evenly so you get areas of too hot and not heated at all, and it dries out my fries. its fairly good college food so its like im sticking restaurant leftovers in the microwave

i need to get some paper plates for heating up food bc it is near comical how the containers just barely fit in the door. and the sensation of biting into a cheeseburger slider where one part is burning my tongue and another is fridge cold is something i need less of in my life >.<

thanks anyway btw ^.^

[fullmetalhearts]

lols ao3 has been back up for a while, tumblr is just hanging onto the fun self roasts

I know I know, I was participating in the self roasts. My actual plan for the evening was to get really high and dive into the defunctland backlog, which I did 👍

[zenosanalytic]

Yeah. Just to add an extra lesson to this though:

It absolutely IS illegal, but you'll notice cops(local, state and federal) aren't doing anything about it. Noticing that, you'll probably ALSO notice a discrepancy between this lack of action, and the OVER Action cops present to, say, the possibility of pot being in someone's car. Why do you think that is? Why would the mere possibility of such insignificant crimes get punished so brutally and immediately by police, while such massive, society-threatening, public crimes go unpunished, and barely acknowledged by them? Which party praises this disparity, and which decries it?

"Elon Musk is literally bribing voters in swing states. Isn't that illegal!?"

If this thought has crossed your mind, then I'm sorry. I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you this.

But it will be the election this November that decides if it's illegal or not.

This year, we are at the breaking point in the intersection of law and politics where whether or not the President's team can outright commit crimes to consolidate his power and destroy his enemies is on the ballot and up for vote.

[raven-6-10]

Prev

(I need a tag for this au)

(I'm taking suggestions)

@hamelin-born @moonraisedsunchild @ertrunkenerwassergeist @cactusprisms @aniseandspearmint @charlottedabookworm

So like. SG-1 is scouting around and they see a herd of weird animals that look like a cross between a unicorn and a gazelle of all things, except kind of weird. But also not the weirdest they have ever seen. And they try to keep their distance, really, they're not stupid enough to approach unknown animals.

Except suddenly the entire herd starts running right at them, so of course they also start running to try to get out of the way. Only it turns out the Space Unicorns are running from a bunch of predators that look like really really big cats. Like, big honkin' space cats.

And oh shit, the Cats decided that humans actually offend them on a personal level, so now the team is really hauling ass to get away. And maybe taking some potshots at the Cats, who basically just shrug it off what the hell, and also they can zap you like their grandma was an electric eel, seriously what the hell, and maybe the team is running in the wrong direction, Daniel! the base is the other way! except is kind of too late to change that.

So they make it to the shore and are running along the beach, at least it's rocky and not sandy that would have been really bad to run along. And it looks like the cats are bored of the chase because they all stopped further back and now are only growling and hissing in their direction and backing away.

. . .

. . .

. . . something is growling real loud behind them.

[chthonion]

as aniseandspearmint pointed out previously, the Duel of Finrod and Sauron parodies out there must be... truly something XD

maybe the bards performing it dress up with a handful of the silliest and most over-the-top-looking costumes you've ever seen and make faces while singing

and all i can imagine is frodo in the market, minding his own business, when he comes across a particularly ridiculous and anachronistic sauron costume and he's memorizing all the little details because by god he HAS to inflict this mental image upon annatar later

(Tagging @aniseandspearmint in because as always they have flawless takes and should know they are appreciated)

Oh my god, Frodo walking into Celebrimbor and Annatar's house like "ANNATAR I'VE GOT A NEW ONE FOR YOU, THERE WAS A GUY ON STILTS PRETENDING TO BE YOU OUTSIDE THE BAKERY"

[tanoraqui]

IMPORTANT QUESTION about the ouat AU. Who runs the town bar? There's gotta be one. And who are the poor man's therapists/bar tenders?

[context]. Hmm... Honestly, I think Finrod's diner probably serves that purpose? Does a narrative really need more than regular eating place that serves as both a community gathering place and a home outside the actual home? And I was imagining it hosting bar-like evening activities, like trivia nights.

But you're right, if it's that important and recurring a setting, it should have more staff...so, Gil-galad is the pimply-faced 21yo just barely old enough to legally serve booze when they start doing that after 5pm. (Yes he still get repeatedly elected Mayor.) Amarië might pick up shifts now and then as well, day and night, as she and Finrod pine desperately without remembering that they were already engaged and finally actually married.

[clockworkcrabofea]

Beleg from Age and Wisdom (of Butterflies) on Ao3. Full of First Elf quirks and with his red boots and antlers. @aniseandspearmint lookit the mans

[princesssarcastia]

rules: make a poll with five of your all time favorite characters and then tag five people to do the same. see which character is everyone's favorite!

tagged by @avocado-moon (aw thank you!). simultaneously forgetting every story i've ever consumed and overwhelmed by having to choose ONLY five of my darlings. here goes:

and now I will tag @wabblebees @aniseandspearmint @sagetsukimura @theunofficiallibrarian @mhalachai @nerteragranadensis